Building Leadership, the Church and the Remnant

Arrow began 29 years ago in Australia when a combination of emerging, energetic leaders and seasoned, faithful leaders got together and asked, “How do we evangelise Australia?” The answer? Through Church leadership. They saw a unique opportunity to build leaders in the Australian Church who were humble, confident, skilled and equipped to do leadership for the long haul and who would, by using those skills, build a culture of evangelism.

Arrow has maintained our commitment to this work over the past two decades and has included leaders from different contexts, such as not-for-profit organisations, Christian schools, and even a few corporate and marketplace leaders. We stay committed to seeing the life-changing message of Jesus be brought to this great nation.

The world needs great Christian leaders, and the richness of Arrow is that we are national and non-denominational, which means our agenda is the personhood of the leader, not their context. We focus on helping leaders find confidence in who they and whose they in a way that leads them to faithfully serve God by whatever means He calls them to for the long haul, to see longevity in Christian leadership in Australia.

Being in this position gives us a unique glimpse into the Church in Australia and leadership trends and markers all over the country – it’s a real privilege to see what God is up to in His Church in Australia. However, something we are acutely aware of, currently viewing and therefore thinking about and are challenged by is a pending Leadership vacuum, particularly in churches nationwide.

The thing is there are currently a number of leaders who have served faithfully for many years and partnered with God to see incredible things happen in their congregations, churches and communities who are reaching retirement age and the problem they are facing is there is no pipeline of leaders to take over where they leave off. We have to skip a generation, and now Boomers and Gen X are looking to Gen Z to take the reins, and it isn’t proving easy.

Here’s the silver lining, though…. The Church was God’s idea, and it still is and will continue to be God’s plan to see His message be brought to the world. The history of the Church shows us that God is in control. You see, since the opening day of the Church in the first century, there has always been a remnant of faithful people who understand that the Church is a movement that must move. They get that this movement spreads a message that must touch down in every single region of the world, and in every generation since the Church started, there have been leaders, pastors, teachers, missionaries, translators, evangelists, and courageous people who don’t do ministry the way it’s always been done because that’s the way it’s always been done. They keep the truth and make a way for people to say yes to Jesus.

As someone called to develop leaders in this nation, I’m interested in partnering with, investing in and developing this next-generation remnant of leaders to push the envelope and take the Church in Australia to the next season of impact.